PROTECT ENVIRONMENT, NOT JUST INVESTORS, SAY US NGOS

11:41 AM Mar 13, 1997

PROTECT ENVIRONMENT, NOT JUST INVESTORS, SAY US NGOS
Washington, Mar 12 (TWN) -- A number of leading US environmental non-governmental organizations have asked the US Trade Representative, Amb. Charlene Barshefsky, to take steps in international negotiations on investment rights to protect the environment, and not merely the rights of investors.

While their letter is addressed to the negotiations at the OECD for a Multilateral Agreement on Investment, the views in the letter, as well as the analysis done by the NGOs of the MAI, they are also relevant to the proposals for study, leading inevitably to negotiations, for a multilateral investment agreement at the WTO.

Noting that levels of private international investment are now rising dramatically around the world, the NGOs say: "Increasing foreign investment could fund cleaner technologies and contribute to poverty alleviation, or it could speed up short-sighted environmental devastation, over-exploitation of natural resources, and further marginalization of the world's poor."

Being negotiated by OECD countries, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) would liberalize investment rules for foreign direct investment and portfolio investment, making it easier for private capital to flow globally, with fewer restrictions. But the draft agreement says little about the responsibilities of foreign investors as they shift their operations from country to country, the letter says.

In the letter to Barshefsky, the groups complain that the MAI is being crafted with insufficient attention to environment, and are concerned about the speed and secrecy with which, the negotiations, scheduled for completion by May, 1997, are being conducted. "The treaty is being negotiated in haste, largely in secret, and with only token gestures at international dialogue with environmentalists and others in civil society."

The NGOs letter to Barshefsky said they joined their NGO colleagues abroad in calling for an extension of the MAI negotiating deadline by at least a year - i.e., until May 1998 - and for the initiating immediately "an environmental impact assessment" of the proposed agreement.

The letter was sent by the Center for International Environmental Law, Community Nutrition Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club and World Wildlife Fund.